"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the
animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel
nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest
lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams, (1722-1803)

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

As the East Coast and parts of Ohio struggled to regroup in the
devastating wake of “Superstorm” Sandy, the Romney campaign hastily
transformed a scheduled victory rally in Dayton, Ohio into a
non-political “storm relief event” on Tuesday. According to BuzzFeed,
the campaign encouraged supporters to bring hurricane relief supplies
and “deliver the bags of canned goods, packages of diapers, and cases of
water bottles to the candidate, who would be perched behind a table
along with a slew of volunteers and his Ohio right-hand man, Senator Rob
Portman.” Just to be safe, campaign aides reportedly spent $5,000 at a local
Wal-Mart on supplies that could be put on display. When supporters
arrived at the rally-turned-relief event, they were treated to the
10-minute video about Romney’s life, which was first unveiled at the
RNC. The event ended with supporters lined up to hand over supplies and
meet Romney. But according to BuzzFeed, this donation process was also
staged:

Empty-handed supporters pled for entrance, with one woman asking, “What if we dropped off our donations up front?”The volunteer gestured toward a pile of groceries conveniently stacked near the candidate. “Just grab something,” he said.Two teenage boys retrieved a jar of peanut butter each, and
got in line. When it was their turn, they handed their “donations” to
Romney. He took them, smiled, and offered an earnest “Thank you.”

The Red Cross, meanwhile, said
they were grateful for the supplies but encouraged people to donate
money or blood as a more efficient way to help the relief effort.

Mitt Romney has a lot of skills you guys. Reading balance sheets! Being unemployed! Avoiding taxes! Running a business! Using an etch-a-sketch!
Etc! But probably his BEST and most useful skillset is lying.
Shamelessly lying, right in your face, and right in Candy Crowley’s
face, and right in the President’s face. Is it therefore a big surprise
that his campaign has been teaching poll workers how to lie? No, of
course it is not. We expect this kind of crap from Mitt Romney and his
campaign from now on because he is a horrible person. READ MORE »

Two auto companies made a surprise foray into the presidential campaign
on Tuesday, bluntly calling out Mitt Romney for his deceptive Ohio ads
that suggest they plan to ship local jobs to China. But according to the
Romney campaign, there’s nothing to see here.

WASHINGTON (AP) — There's nothing like a natural disaster to test the
depth of politicians' preference for small government.

And so Mitt Romney found himself on the hot seat after superstorm Sandy
battered the East Coast. Only last year, as Romney hewed to the right
while battling for the GOP nomination, he appeared to suggest in a
debate that the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be shuttered
and its responsibilities left to the states.

"Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal
government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction,"
Romney said at a debate last year. "And if you can go even further, and
send it back to the private sector, that's even better."

Asked by moderator John King of CNN whether that would include disaster
relief, Romney said: "We cannot afford to do those things without
jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view,
for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on
to our kids."

Now, a week before Election Day, in the wake of a massive disaster,
Romney's campaign is reassuring voters that his administration wouldn't
leave disaster victims in the lurch. The public's attention is locked on
the devastation caused by superstorm Sandy at a time when Romney and
President Barack Obama are locked in a close presidential campaign. With
Obama heavily involved in getting federal funds to those in trouble,
the Romney campaign moved quickly to reassure the public it supports a
strong program of storm relief.

"A Romney-Ryan administration will always ensure that disaster funding
is there for those in need," said campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg.
"Period."

Romney's campaign says he's not interested in getting rid of FEMA,
though Romney himself ducked a spate of opportunities Tuesday to clarify
his position. The campaign instead issued a statement that essentially
endorsed the current disaster aid system.

"Gov. Romney believes that states should be in charge of emergency
management in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their
jurisdictions," Henneberg said. "As the first responders, states are in
the best position to aid affected individuals and communities, and to
direct resources and assistance to where they are needed most. This
includes help from the federal government and FEMA."

But what the campaign wouldn't do is say whether a President Romney
would insist that help for disaster victims be funded by cutting other
programs in the federal budget.

Running mate Paul Ryan is squarely on the side of cutting other spending
to pay for disasters. Earlier this year, he tried but failed to scrap a
new system, established in the 2011 debt ceiling-deficit
cuts deal, that boosts disaster spending and budgets help for victims
of hurricanes, tornadoes and floods before they occur. House leaders
rebuffed him, siding with Appropriations Committee members of both
parties who like the new system.

What Ryan proposed is that when disaster strikes, lawmakers first scour
the rest of the budget for savings to pay for rebuilding homes, roads
and schools and helping small businesses.

That's easier said than done, especially since it can mean delays in getting aid out the door. Disasters like Hurricane Katrina
— and perhaps Sandy — can prove so costly that it's simply
impracticable to find cuts in other programs big enough to pay for the
aid.

As has been shown time after time — especially as tornadoes and
hurricanes rip through politically conservative states — even the
sturdiest tea party supporters become fans of government when it's
doling out money to storm victims for motel rooms and other temporary
housing or helping with house repairs.

That role fell Tuesday to New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie, who was
effusive in his praise for Obama and the federal government's initial
response.

"The president has been outstanding in this and so have the folks at FEMA," Christie said on NBC's "Today."

It'll take several weeks to come up with damage cost estimates to
determine whether FEMA's main disaster account will need more money.

FEMA has enough cash available to deal with immediate disaster relief,
almost $8 billion, thanks to a six-month government funding bill passed
in September and the new disaster financing system.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

DETROIT, Michigan — Chrysler’s chief on Tuesday joined a chorus of
critics slamming Mitt Romney for an ad that implies Jeep is shipping
American jobs to China as a result of President Barack Obama’s policies.The ad is airing in the critical battleground of Ohio, where one in
eight jobs depends on the auto industry and Chrysler is building Jeeps
at a plant in Toledo.It was produced after the Republican White House hopeful was roundly
criticized for telling supporters in Ohio last week that Jeep was going
to move “all” production to China.Chrysler called the rumor “a leap that would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats.”Obama won a lot of support among Ohio’s blue collar workers by
pushing through an $84 billion bailout of the US auto industry despite
objections from Republicans — including Romney, who has taken heat for
declaring “let Detroit go bankrupt” in the midst of the crisis.With just a week to go before the November 6 election, Obama is
currently up by 2.1 points in a Real Clear Politics average of recent
Ohio polls.Romney’s ad shows cars being crushed as a narrator declares that
“Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to
Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China,” while insisting Romney
will “do more” for the auto industry.Chrysler chief executive officer Sergio Marchionne insisted that
plans to build Jeeps in China are a sign of the company’s strength and
that local production is the only way to expand in the world’s largest
automotive market.He also noted that Chrysler has tripled Jeep production in the United
States and added more than 11,200 jobs since it came under Fiat’s
stewardship in 2009. “Jeep assembly lines will remain in operation in
the United States and will constitute the backbone of the brand,”
Marchionne said in a letter to employees.“It is inaccurate to suggest anything different.”The Obama campaign fought back Monday with an ad of its own calling
Romney “wrong then… dishonest now,” interspersed with a clip of Romney
saying “let Detroit go bankrupt.”Romney has called his rival’s use of the quote misleading, insisting
that that he was simply saying the private sector should take the lead
and that Obama ultimately did as he suggested by restructuring General
Motors and Chrysler under bankruptcy protection.Critics and experts have noted that credit markets were essentially
frozen due to the financial crisis and that GM, Chrysler and their
suppliers would have simply collapsed without government help at a cost
of about a million jobs.Both companies have posted huge profits, expanded production, added
jobs and repaid most of their loans since emerging from the
government-backed bankruptcy.

TPMFormer Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) told the AP Tuesday that he wasn't speaking as a Mitt Romney surrogate when he told voters in Ohio that Roe v. Wade would be safe in a Romney administration.

In an interview on Tuesday, Coleman told The Associated Press he had been speaking on his own behalf, and not for Romney.

He said he meant that the
decision is longstanding precedent, and that Republicans would fight
over issues like parental notification and partial birth abortion rather
than Roe v Wade itself.

On Tuesday, groups on both sides of the abortion debate told TPM a Romney victory would hasten the reversal of Roe. Romney's website says "he believes that the right next step is for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade."

As Click & Clack will tell you, it’s the stingy man who ends up
paying most, and apparently it’s as true of governing as car repairs!
And apparently also, Mitt Romney, as governor of Massachusetts, was
quite the Scrooge when it came to building levees and other flood
control for his state! Here is a nice find from our friends at Slog:

In the spring of 2004, Peabody, Mass., got drenched with
rain, which flooded the downtown area. After the storm, then-Gov. Mitt
Romney asked President George W. Bush to declare Essex, Middlesex and
Suffolk Counties federal disaster areas, according to the Boston Globe.That fall, the state legislature proposed spending $5.7
million on a flood prevention project to protect against future floods.
Those funds would be matched by $22 million in federal money.Romney vetoed it.

Haha, you guys are never gonna guess what happened just two years later, in 1996 2006. Go ahead, try. You’ll never … oh. Yeah, that was it. READ MORE »

In the final days of the 2012 race, Mitt Romney’s campaign is really making good on its pollster’s August promise
to ignore fact checkers. To close the deal in the Ohio, Team Romney is
blitzing the state with a series of wildly deceptive statements and ads
suggesting that Chrysler is moving local jobs to China. The latest is an unannounced radio spot, audio of which was posted by the Greg Sargent on Tuesday. The spot asks whether Obama rescued the auto industry for “Ohio — or China?”“Now comes word that Chrysler plans to start making Jeeps in — you
guessed it — China,” the ad’s narrator says. “What happened to the
promises made to autoworkers in Toledo and throughout Ohio — the same
hard-working men and women who were told that Obama’s auto bailout would
help them?”The radio spot is a supercharged version of an earlier television ad, also unannounced, that drew unusually widespread condemnation
in the local and national press for tying a planned expansion of Jeep
operations in China to the fate of Jeep workers in Ohio. And that ad
jumped off similar statements Romney made earlier while campaigning in
Ohio. Chrysler, Jeep’s parent company, has publicly condemned Romney’s claims as false,
writing on its website that they have “no intention of shifting
production of its Jeep models out of North America to China” and that
any expansion in Asia is to serve Asian markets. In fact, they are adding over 1,000 jobs to their Toledo factory as part of a $500 million investment in upgrading its capacity. After Romney continued to suggest otherwise in ads, Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne personally called him out for “inaccurate” claims.“Jeep is one of our truly global brands with uniquely American roots.
This will never change. So much so that we committed that the iconic
Wrangler nameplate, currently produced in our Toledo, Ohio plant, will
never see full production outside the United States,” Marchionne said on
Tuesday. “Jeep assembly lines will remain in operation in the United
States and will constitute the backbone of the brand.”GM didn’t take well to the ad either, bristling at the notion that
the auto rescue — which the Center for Automotive research estimated
saved 1 million US jobs — encouraged outsourcing. “We’ve clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days,” GM spokesman Greg Martin told the Detroit Free Press.
“No amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our
record of creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to
this country.”Detroit News reporter David Sherpardson reported some more choice words
from GM over the ad, quoting a representative who said “At this stage,
we’re looking at a Hubble telescope-length distances between campaign
ads and reality….GM’s creating jobs in the US and repatriating profits
back to this country should be a source of bipartisan pride.”

Things have been getting dicy in the fact check department in general this week in Ohio. In addition to Romney’s repeated claim
that he’d have saved the auto industry largely with private funds, a
scenario experts say would have been impossible during the financial
crisis, one of his top surrogates suggested on Monday that a Romney
administration would have little effect on abortion laws. Romney
supporter Norm Coleman told a Jewish group in the state on Monday that
Roe v. Wade would never be reversed under Romney, despite Romney’s frequent criticism of the decision. In a blast from the past, the Romney campaign is also reviving ads (unannounced, yet again) that feature a debunked claim
that Obama “gutted” welfare work requirements. Romney’s original
welfare attack in the summer was savaged in the press as inaccurate,
prompting Romney’s pollster Neil Newhouse to respond that “we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.”The Obama campaign, which has its own ad out
countering Romney’s in the state, has tried to suggest that the
campaign’s dismissiveness towards fact checks suggests they’re behind in
the state and getting desperate. The Romney campaign insists that the
race is a toss up and that they’re expanding the electoral map elsewhere
to places like Pennsylvania and Minnesota as well.

A harried-looking New Jersey Governor Chris Christie showed up
on Fox & Friends this morning, and the concerned geniuses there
immediately got to the important question, while he explained the
massive destruction all around him: Would he be having a nice photo op
of the devastation of his state with Republican standardbearer His Lord
High Hairgel Mittens of Romney? “Hmmm,” said Chris Christie, “no, I
think I would prefer it if ol’ Mittens ate a dick instead!” (Direct
quote.) Then he gay-married Barack Obama for being awesome at
government! READ MORE »

Monday, October 29, 2012

The boxes landed in the office of Montana investigators in March 2011.Found in a meth house in Colorado, they were somewhat of a mystery,
holding files on 23 conservative candidates in state races in Montana.
They were filled with candidate surveys and mailers that said they were
paid for by campaigns, and fliers and bank records from outside spending
groups. One folder was labeled “Montana $ Bomb.”The documents pointed to one outside group pulling the candidates’
strings: a social welfare nonprofit called Western Tradition
Partnership, or WTP.Altogether, the records added up to possible illegal “coordination”
between the nonprofit and candidates for office in 2008 and 2010, said a
Montana investigator and a former Federal Election Commission chairman
who reviewed the material. Outside groups are allowed to spend money on
political campaigns, but not to coordinate with candidates.“My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that WTP was running a lot of
these campaigns,” said investigator Julie Steab of the Montana
Commissioner of Political Practices, who initially received the boxes
from Colorado.The boxes were examined by Frontline and ProPublica as part of an investigation into the growing influence on elections of dark money groups,
tax-exempt organizations that can accept unlimited contributions and do
not have to identify their donors. The documents offer a rare glimpse
into the world of dark money, showing how Western Tradition Partnership
appealed to donors, interacted with candidates and helped shape their
election efforts.Though WTP’s spending has been at the state level, it’s best-known
nationally for bringing a lawsuit that successfully challenged Montana’s ban on corporate spending in elections, extending the provisions of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Citizens United decision to all states.The tax code allows nonprofits like WTP to engage in some political
activity, but they are supposed to have social welfare as their primary
purpose. As reported previously by ProPublica and Frontline, when WTP
applied for recognition of its tax-exempt status, it told the IRS under penalty of perjury that it would not directly or indirectly attempt to influence elections — even though it already had.The group is now locked in an ongoing dispute with Montana authorities, who ruled in October 2010
that the nonprofit should have registered as a political committee and
should have to disclose its donors. WTP sued. A hearing is set for
March.In the meantime, the group has changed its name to American Tradition
Partnership, reflecting its larger ambitions. This month, it sent
Montana voters a mailer in the form of a newspaper called the Montana Statesman that claimed to be the state’s “largest & most trusted news source.”The front page accused the Democratic gubernatorial candidate of being soft on sex offenders.Donny Ferguson, American Tradition Partnership’s spokesman and
executive director, did not specifically address the documents found in
Colorado or allegations of coordination made against WTP.“American Tradition Partnership always obeys every letter of every
applicable law,” he wrote in an emailed response to questions. “ATP does
not, and never will, endorse candidates or urge voters to vote for or
against candidates. … These false allegations are old hat.”On its website, the group
says its primary purpose is issue advocacy and combating radical
environmentalists, whom it sometimes calls “gang green.” It describes
itself as a grassroots group backed by a broad membership of small
donors.When asked about the documents found in Colorado, Jim Brown, a lawyer for the group, said he was unfamiliar with them.After being shown some of the documents by Frontline, Brown, in a
follow up email, said his review indicated that they appeared to belong
to a company called Direct Mail. Direct Mail and Communications is a
print shop in Livingston, Mont., run by a one-time key player in WTP and
his wife.Brown urged Frontline to turn over the documents. “If the documents
are purported to be what you say they are, then you may knowingly be in
possession of stolen property,” Brown wrote.The records are in the hands of the Montana Commissioner of Political
Practices, which considers them public and reviewable upon request.*****In the anything-goes world of modern campaign finance, outside groups
face one major restriction: They are not allowed to coordinate with
candidates. That’s because contributions to candidates and parties are
still capped to limit donors’ direct influence, while contributions to
outside groups are unlimited.The Federal Election Commission has a three-pronged test
for proving coordination: Did an outside group pay for ads, phone calls
or mailers? Did these materials tell people to vote for or against a
candidate, or praise or criticize a candidate in the weeks before an
election? Finally, did the candidate, or a representative, agree to the
expenditure?Many concerns have been raised about coordination in this election because of close ties between outside groups and campaigns. Super PACs supporting President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney are run by their former staffers. Super PACs and campaigns have used the same consultants, who insist in interviews that they have firewalls.Proving coordination is extremely difficult, however. Since 2007, the
FEC has investigated 64 complaints of coordination, but found against
candidates and groups only three times, fining them a total of $107,000,
a review of FEC enforcement actions shows.Montana, which has similar rules, also receives few complaints about such activity, Steab said.The boxes from Colorado contained a mixture of documents from candidates and outside groups.Folders labeled with the names of Montana candidates held drafts and
final letters of support signed by candidates’ wives and drafts and
final copies of mailers marked as being paid for by the campaigns. The
folders often appeared to have had an accounting of what had been sent
and paid for scrawled on the front.Several folders included copies of the signatures of candidates and
their wives. “Use this one,” someone wrote in red pen next to a cut-out
rectangle on a page with five signatures from one candidate.Steab, the Montana investigator, said she believed these cut-out signatures were then affixed to fliers from the candidates.Besides material from the campaigns, the boxes also contained mailers
on 2008 and 2010 races in Colorado and Montana from Western Tradition
Partnership and six other groups. There were bank statements for several
groups, including the Coalition for Energy and the Environment, the Alliance of Montana Taxpayers and the Conservative Victory Fund.In all the documents, one name repeatedly popped up: Christian LeFer. Even though two Montana Republican politicians founded WTP, investigators determined that LeFer was the man behind the scenes.LeFer, who is described as WTP’s director of strategic programming in memos in 2009, said in an email
that the documents “appear to be stolen property” and that, as he’d had
no access to them, he couldn’t respond to most of ProPublica’s
questions, “which seem to be based on an erroneous and fanciful
interpretation of what they mean.”LeFer did not address whether WTP had coordinated with candidates.
Although former employees and candidates said LeFer helped his wife run
Direct Mail and Communications — the printing company that Brown, the
lawyer, suggested was the owner of the boxes of documents found in
Colorado — LeFer said he did not “run or direct the activities” there.Direct Mail listed its principal office address in Montana filings as being the same Colorado address WTP initially used.Two outside groups with documents in the boxes — the Montana Committee to Protect the Unborn and Montana Citizens for Right to Work — listed their addresses on bank statements as the same post-office box in Livingston used by LeFer and Direct Mail. LeFer was also the executive director of Montana Citizens for Right to Work, an anti-union group.Former state Rep. Ed Butcher said LeFer and Western Tradition Partnership aided candidates with no experience.“They’ll come in, if candidates want some help, they’ll come in and
help them,” said Butcher, who described LeFer as “a Karl Rove type
political strategist” who “stays in the background.”Butcher’s file in the Colorado boxes was labeled “Butcher Primary ’08 mail samples.”
It included an email from LeFer to Butcher with a survey about unions.
There was a campaign donation form, and drafts of fliers and a letter
from Butcher’s campaign.A “wife questionnaire” for Butcher’s wife Pam said she met her
husband “on a blind date arranged by his buddy that neither of us
wanted.” The questionnaire listed her children’s names and that she had
been taking care of her disabled mother for five years.A letter on pink paper from Pam Butcher
was in a file marked “wife letters.” The letter, which contained much
of the information in the questionnaire, was marked as being paid for by
Butcher’s campaign.Butcher said his wife might have run her letter past LeFer. “He may
have asked, ‘Do you need any help?’ and she said, ‘Yeah, I need to get
this family letter out,’” said Butcher, who won the Republican primary
in 2008 by 20 votes.A folder for another successful candidate, Mike Miller,
included a fax cover sheet from Miller to LeFer, forwarding Miller’s
filled-out Montana candidate surveys for two outside groups, the
National Gun Owners Alliance and the National League of Taxpayers. It
also held a candidate survey asking Miller if he had any research about
his opponent, including “any recent scandals.”Miller confirmed to Frontline that LeFer was an unpaid adviser on his campaign, but would not elaborate further.Trevor Potter, a former federal election commissioner who now runs
the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group that advocates for more
restrictions on money in politics, reviewed the documents found in the
boxes.“This is the sort of information that is, in fact, campaign strategy,
campaign plans that candidates cannot share with an outside group
without making it coordinated,” Potter said.“You need to know more, but certainly if I were back in my FEC days
as a commissioner, I would say we had grounds to proceed with an
investigation and put people under oath and show them these documents,
and ask where they came from and where they were.”*****After the 2008 election, Montana started investigating whether WTP should have disclosed its donors.The inquiry progressed slowly until 2010, when a former WTP
contractor handed over internal fundraising records, saying she was
worried about what the group was doing.The documents showed that the group raised money specifically by
telling people and corporations that they could give unlimited amounts
in secret.“The only thing we plan on reporting is our success to contributors
like you who can see the benefits of a program like this,” said one
document, a 2010 election briefing to read to potential donors. “You can just sit back on election night and see what a difference you’ve made.”A target list
of potential donors included an executive at a talc mine, the Montana
representative of an international mining group and a Colorado executive
for a global gold-mining company.One note about a potential donor advised: “Married rich, hard to get a
hold of. Have a beer with him.” Another said: “Owns big ranch, signed a
hit piece I wrote on cty cmms’r last year (don’t mention), should give
$$ $10,000 ask.”Other notes suggested that solicitors “See Christian” or “Talk to Christian,” apparently references to LeFer.The documents cited the group’s success in 2008, saying in a confidential grassroots membership development proposal that 28 Montana state legislators “rode into office in 100% support of WTP’s responsible development agenda.”By 2010, the partnership was active in state races in Montana and Colorado.That October, Montana authorities said Western Tradition Partnership
had violated campaign-finance law and should be fined. They said the
group’s purpose in 2008 was “not to discuss issues, but to directly
influence candidate elections through surreptitious means.”The Montana investigation
also said the evidence was overwhelming that WTP had established the
Coalition for Energy and the Environment, known as CEE, as a “sham
organization” to act as a front for expenditures actually made by WTP.But the investigation also found that “sufficient evidence has not
been disclosed to establish coordination between WTP/CEE and any
candidate. Concern and healthy skepticism is warranted, however.”That was before the boxes from Colorado turned up.A convicted felon named Mark Seibel said he stumbled on them inside a known meth house near Denver at some point in late 2010.It’s not clear how they got there. Seibel said a friend found them in
a stolen car. After reading through some of the documents, he reached
out to people he thought might be interested in them — primarily
Colorado candidates attacked by Western Tradition Partnership. A lawyer
married to one of the candidates shipped the boxes off to Montana
investigators.By that time, however, the Montana probe into the group’s activities
in the 2008 election was over. Steab also said that there was no way to
determine for certain where the documents were from and who owned them.
There was no whistleblower, and no information about how the records
ended up in Colorado.Despite this, Steab said, she found the documents very telling.“It looks to me that there was a lot of coordination—but I don’t know
that it’s coordination that everyone is aware of in all cases,” she
said. She said she spoke to one candidate who told her he was upset
about all the negative mailers against his opponent.This year, American Tradition Partnership is as active as ever. It’s
suing to try to overturn contribution limits in Montana, so far unsuccessfully.
The group sent out mailers attacking candidates before the June primary
in Montana, reporting none of them to the state as political
expenditures. It later put out a press release saying that 12 of the 14 candidates it backed had won.For the general election, the group appears to be targeting Montana’s
attorney general, Steve Bullock, the Democratic candidate for governor.
As attorney general, Bullock fought the partnership’s lawsuits against
the state, including the one that ended up in the Supreme Court.The first issue of the partnership’s Montana Statesman newspaper, dated Oct. 7, which a group press release said was sent to 180,000 voters, featured four photographs on the front page:
Three of registered sex offenders, and one of Bullock, accusing him of
allowing one in four sex offenders to go unregistered. “Bullock admits
failure,” the headline announced. A full-page ad accused Bullock of
taking illegal corporate contributions and of “criminal hypocrisy.”The Statesman’s editor and publisher is none other than Ferguson,
the partnership’s executive director, described as an “award-winning
newspaper veteran” who has been “commended by other newspapers for his
‘honest, intelligent and issue-oriented’ approach.”Ferguson didn’t respond to a question about his journalism credentials.“Conservative group American Tradition Partnership now one of
nation’s biggest media outlets,” said a press release on the group’s website, adding that the newspaper would publish “several” editions through Election Day and into 2013.

As Election Day draws near millions of Americans are looking up the
latest polls to see whether Mitt Romney or President Obama will win in
November. In addition to the polls, two other projections have gained
significant notoriety over the last year. One is a market called
Intrade, and the other is projective model developed by statistician
Nate Silver of The New York Times. Both of those predictive
measurements have significantly upgraded President Obama’s odds for
victory over the last 72 hours, likely in response to Obama’s improving poll numbers.For those unfamiliar with Intrade, it is a trading market
in which people to make predictions by buying stock in a particular
event. For instance, someone can buy “stock” in the prediction that
President Obama will win re-election vote count on November 6.
Currently that “stock” for President Obama winning is selling a $6.29 a share.
If the trader is right and the event happens they can sell each shares
for $10. If the trader is wrong, and the event does not happen, their
shares go down to $0. Shares can also be sold before the event happens
for a profit or loss.With the “Obama re-election stock” currently selling at $6.29,
traders are essentially betting that Obama has a 62.9% chance of
winning. That number is a significant upgrade from Obama from Wednesday
morning, when Obama was trading at just $5.60.
What this essentially means is that people who have actual money
riding on the outcome increased Obama’s odds for victory by 10 percent.The second projection is much more complicated. Nate Silver has developed fame for a website called FiveThirtyEight.com
which incorporates all the polling data, and more, in order to project
elections. Silver’s model is much more complex than a simple average of
the polls. Silver takes into account the demographics of each state,
the direction of the economy, and he also weighs each pollster
differently based on their past performance.According to Silver’s November 6 forecast, President Obama currently
has a 73.1% chance of winning the election. Over the last 72 hours
Silver has increased Obama’s odds by over 5%. Two weeks ago, on October
12, Silver had President Obama’s odds down all the way to 61.1%. So while many in the media are continuing with the narrative that
Mitt Romney has the momentum, Obama is trending up with the people who
are putting their wallets where the mouth is, and with the statistician
who has made a name for himself in projecting elections.

THINK PROGRESSA Republican congresswoman accused the Obama administration of
promulgating regulations that are undermining job creation at an auto
manufacturer that has been defunct since 1988. She was responding to a
question on Monday about Mitt Romney’s dishonest claims regarding Jeep moving its production overseas.During an appearance on MSNBC, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) dodged a
question about Romney’s debunked Jeep claims and instead attacked the
Obama administration for issuing regulations that are harming workers at
American Motors Corporation,
a company once headed by George Romney. AMC was sold to Chrysler during
the Ronald Reagan administration and its brands were then discontinued:

CHIRS JENSING (HOST): Let me ask you about some of the things going on
on the campaign trail, and there’s a controversy about Mitt Romney
telling voters that jeep is going to move production to China. According
to the company that’s entirely false. Is he lying about that? BLACKBURN: Oh, well, I don’t know. I haven’t talked with with the campaign staff about that. I
will say this. For workers in the auto industry, across the board,
whether it is GM, whether it’s Nissan, whether it’s American Motors,
individuals are very concerned about the impact of regulation that the
EPA and OSHA and other federal agencies are heaping on our manufacturers.

Since the auto rescue, GM, Ford, and Chrysler are experiencing increases in sales of 10, 13, and 14 percent, respectively. Obama’s approach, which Romney vehemently opposed, helped save as many as 1.3 million jobs and the administration’s new fuel efficiency standards
and incentives included in the 2009 stimulus are driving American-made
cars to be become more competitive in an international market.

Oh goody, more incriminating audio from a Mitt Romney fundraiser. This
one is from a fundraiser he and his wife attended at the Irvine,
California, home of David Horowitz (a different David Horowitz) back in
March, and although Mittens didn’t insult half of the nation, he DID say
that Obama considers businesspeople “a necessary evil” and his wife
said that the president is not a “grown-up.” Also, did you know that
China is a better place to do business than the U.S. (which surely has
nothing to do with all those young women who are locked into Romney
factories at night)? And that Obama wants half of the economy to be
“controlled by government”? Well, now you do.READ MORE »

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Back when he was severely conservative during the GOP primaries, did
Mitt Romney say he’d shut down FEMA and have the states take
responsibility for disaster relief? Not quite in one declarative
statement. But he certainly seemed to say that disaster preparedness
and relief should be taken from the federal government and turned over
to the states. Ryan Grim over at Huffpo just wrote up a passage
from a June GOP primary debate in which Romney seems pretty clearly to
say we should shut FEMA down and send disaster relief as a
responsibility back to the states.(Less dramatically, though perhaps just as important, this MoJo piece
from August notes that the Ryan budget, which Romney has embraced,
almost certainly requires big cuts in various disaster preparedness and
relief programs.)He links a video which was uploaded back on September 21st of last
year but seems to have been viewed by virtually no one until tonight.

Rochester, MI. October 25, 2012. Alyson Oliver, a Michigan attorney
representing several injured victims of the fungal meningitis outbreak
and the lead attorney in the effort to consolidate the fungal meningitis
cases nationally, announced today a new website, www.fungalmeningitis.com,
designed to educate the public about the what Oliver believes to be the
apparent failure of the Massachusetts Department of Health and Human
Services to adequately address deficiencies at the New England
Compounding Center (NECC), the source of contaminated drugs linked to
deaths and widespread injuries. Oliver has uncovered what she terms
‘serious concerns’ about how Governor Mitt Romney’s administration
responded to complaints against NECC.
Oliver’s investigation of NECC, the supplier of the contaminated
drugs in question, led her to carefully examine the history of NECC’s
disciplinary actions and enforcement under then Governor Romney’s Health
and Human Services Department. Oliver found that NECC had a history of
violating accepted pharmaceutical industry standards and that, during
Governor Mitt Romney’s tenure, the Massachusetts state government
consistently conceded to requests by NECC’s counsel for more lenient
treatment rather than the initial requested penalties according to
correspondence between NECC and the State of Massachusetts. Oliver, in
collaboration with Crivella West Incorporated, an advanced analytics and
investigational research company, is providing public access to these
important records at www.fungalmeningitis.com.
Massachusetts state records reveal that NECC and its Manager of
Record, Barry J. Cadden, were the subject of six complaints between 2003
and 2006. At least one of these complaints alleged that NECC and Cadden
failed to comply with accepted pharmaceutical standards in compounding
methypredinsolene acetate. Methypredinsolone acetate is the same drug
that has been recalled by NECC and linked to the outbreak of fungal
meningitis resulting in numerous deaths. The Centers for Disease and
Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
earlier this month advised medical professionals to discontinue use of
any products manufactured by the New England Compounding Center.
Initially, the Office of Health and Human Services Department of
Public Health and Board of Registration in Pharmacy (BRPh) offered to
enter into a consent agreement with NECC to resolve the complaints
relating to methypredinsolone acetate. The initial proposal required
disciplinary action, public reprimand, and a three year probationary
period. NECC rejected the proposed consent agreement and, according to
the documents of the BRPh, negotiated a more lenient penalty with the
Romney administration’s BRPh. Ultimately, the NECC was required to serve
one year of probation and pay for a private consultant to monitor
compliance. Further, according to these same records, the BRPh agreed
that the non-disciplinary agreement would not be reported to the
National Association of State Boards of Pharmacy or other outside
agencies. Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, NECC could avoid the
one year probation if additional conditions were met.
Oliver’s investigation of the public records uncovered little
evidence that Governor Romney’s agencies diligently monitored or
scrutinized NECC’s compliance activities. Effectively, the BRPh records
establish that NECC was left to self-report completion of compliance
requirements.
The Oliver Group, P.C. filed the first lawsuit in Michigan involving
the meningitis outbreak from the tainted steroids sold by the New
England Compounding Center (NECC). Oliver Law Group has also filed a
petition before the Joint Panel on Multi District Litigation. This
petition seeks consolidation and coordination of the various meningitis
lawsuits pending nationally to one court. The Oliver Law Group is an
aggressive and effective consumer advocate law firm, currently involved
in many of the biggest national cases against pharmaceutical and medical
device companies.

THINK PROGRESSCasino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who has donated more than $50 million to
Republicans, is now pressuring his casino employees to vote for Mitt
Romney. According to the Huffington Post, Adelson’s Management at Las
Vegas Sands Corp. “has been distributing voter guides friendly to Republican nominee Mitt Romney and critical of President Barack Obama to its casino employees in Las Vegas.” While the so-called Nevada “issues guides”
don’t specifically endorse Romney, the pamphlets strongly imply that
Obama’s policies could cause workers to lose their jobs. “Too much of
big government doesn’t just affect our company; it affects our
employees, our customers, and our shareholders,” the guide says. “Voting
is an important way for you no only to do your civic duty, but to
protect your job.” It goes on to misrepresent Obama’s health, tax, and
energy policies — while painting Romney’s proposal in a favorable light:

HEALTH CARE: “The federal government requiring all U.S. citizens to buy
or otherwise obtain health insurance coverage as a condition of their
citizenship is not good for America, our company, and our employees….Gov. Romney favors reform that encourages competition and brings down costs.” TAXES: “The President would increase many types of taxes, including those on businesses that file taxes as individuals…The
governor supports a flatter, simpler and fairer tax code for all
Americans that will help businesses and families to prosper.” ENERGY: “[Obama's] administration restricted the expansion of
leases for oil and gas exploration on government lands and opposed the
Keystone XL pipeline that will produce more jobs and lower energy prices….The governor supports energy independence and immediate expansion of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Adelson’s efforts to elect Romney would greatly bolster his bottom
line. A report from the Center for American Progress Action Fund found
that Romney’s tax proposals, which call for massive tax cuts for the rich, corporate tax reforms that will encourage the offshoring of profits, and the elimination of certain investment taxes, could save Adelson more than $2 billion in taxes.Romney’s corporate tax reforms would also provide Adelson’s casino company approximately $1.2 billion in tax breaks
on overseas profits and $565 million from Romney’s proposed shift to a
territorial tax system. Adelson’s share of that, the report says, would
be upward of $900 million.And while Adelson would benefit from Romney’s reforms, the workers receiving his brochures could see a $2,000 tax increase if Romney were to keep his plan to maintain current levels of revenue. Since the Supreme Court expanded the rules governing corporations’
and unions’ ability to promote political speech in the Citizens United
case,severalCEOshave been pressuring employees in swing states (like Nevada) to vote for Romney, a practice the GOP presidential candidate himself has endorsed.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Since he came into office, Republicans have consistently attacked
President Obama for supposedly being anti-business. As ThinkProgress
noted last week, the data shows that this charge is nonsense.In fact, as the financial website Motley Fool noted today, President Obama is far and away the best president for corporate profits since 1900:

Even if corporate profits under Obama are compared to the 2008 peak —
in order to erase the effect of the financial crisis — “average annual
corporate profit growth under President Obama is 6.8%,” or nearly three times as large as it was under President Reagan. Both Presidents Bush actually oversaw corporate profit declines during their terms. Meanwhile, real GDP growth per capita is far higher under Obama than it was under either Bush administration.

LANSING, MI - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is
getting heat for wrongly claiming in an Ohio rally Thursday night that
Chrysler may move all Jeep production to China.He apparently was referring to a recent Bloomberg story about Fiat, Chrylser's majority owner, returning Jeep output to China for the first time in at least a few years.Chrysler now builds all Jeep SUV models in Michigan, Ohio and
Illinois, according to Bloomberg. In the story, the reporter wrote that
Mike Manley, chief operating officer of Fiat and Chrysler in Asia,
"referred to adding Jeep production sites rather than shifting output
from North America to China." Romney, however, told supporters in Defiance, Ohio, that he had read a
story that Jeep "is thinking of moving all production to China" -
prompting groans from the crowd. He may have been referencing
conservative blogs or other stories that incorrectly concluded from the
Bloomberg story that Jeep might close U.S. plants, the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press reported Friday.A Chrysler spokesman criticized those interpretations on Thursday even before Romney's made his comments."Let's set the record straight: Jeep has no intention of shifting
production of its Jeep models out of North America to China. It's simply
reviewing the opportunities to return Jeep output to China for the
world's largest auto market. U.S. Jeep assembly lines will continue to
stay in operation," Gualberto Ranieri said.Obama's Michigan campaign spokesman Matt McGrath told the News that
Romney's comments were "blatantly false" and "speaks to how Romney will
say absolutely anything to win votes."The Romney campaign had no immediate comment Friday.

A top adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign denied
the nation’s income inequality gap in a Wall Street Journal editorial
on Thursday, brushing off the growing concentration of wealth in the
hands of the very wealthy by arguing that lower-income Americans are
buying more consumer goods. “Today we hear that the gains from economic growth accrue to the
highest-income earners while the standard of living of the poor and
middle America stagnates and the gap between the richest and the poorest
grows ever wider,” Kevin Hassett and Aparna Mathur argue. “That portrait of the country is wrong“:

Yet the access of low-income Americans—those earning less than
$20,000 in real 2009 dollars—to devices that are part of the “good life”
has increased. The percentage of low-income households with a
computer rose to 47.7% from 19.8% in 2001. The percentage of low-income
homes with six or more rooms (excluding bathrooms) rose to 30% from
21.9% over the same period.Appliances? The percentage of low-income homes with air-conditioning
equipment rose to 83.5% from 65.8%, with dishwashers to 30.8% from
17.6%, with a washing machine to 62.4% from 57.2%, and with a clothes
dryer to 56.5% from 44.9%.The percentage of low-income households with microwave ovens
grew to 92.4% from 74.9% between 2001 and 2009. Fully 75.5% of
low-income Americans now have a cell phone, and over a quarter of those
have access to the Internet through their phones.

But this argument, a favorite of conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, is highly misleading.
Appliances and commonly used consumer gadgets like cell phones are
necessities in the 21st century and are significantly cheaper today than
they were just decades earlier. In fact, were families to sell their
appliances in order to help pay for food and other basic necessities,
many would still struggle — for while prices on microwaves and air
conditioners have fallen, “the real everyday basics such as quality
child care and out-of-pocket medical costs” are “squeezing the budgets of the poor and middle-class alike.”Hassett argues that safety net programs like “unemployment insurance,
food stamps, Medicaid” help families afford basic needs, further
shrinking the nation’s income gap. But these programs are already failing to keep up with need and Romney and Ryan have proposed massive cuts to the safety net in order to pay down the deficit and finance a tax cut plan that is heavily skewed towards the rich.Their approach would only exacerbate the differences between the rich and poor
— a gap that has grown dramatically since the late 1970s. Indeed,
compared to the 34 countries in the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States has a Gini
coefficient — a number that measures the distribution of income on a
scale of 0 (perfectly equal) to 1 (perfectly unequal) — of 0.47 and ranks near the very bottom in inequality.
America also suffers from the absolute highest “percentage of national
income that went to the top 1 percent” and “has seen income inequality
increase at a much faster rate than most other countries.”This trend is already devastating
the American democratic ideals of equal opportunity and upward
mobility. Unfortunately, neither Romney nor his advisers can see the
problem or offer the kind of tax and economic policies that will help
solve it.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

An analysis of the Romney – Ryan Plan
put out by the Center for American Progress shows that the Romney-Ryan
Plan could hit most Iowans in the pocketbook extremely hard. Considering
that most are far from recovered from the most recent Republican
Depression, I doubt many would want to look forward to the personal
costs of Romney-Ryan.CAP Action Releases New Report: “The True Cost of Romney-Ryan Plan to Iowans”Washington, D.C. —The Center for American Progress Action Fund launched Romney University
this summer to inject facts and policy into the national debate. Over
the past month, CAP Action has been touring the country – traveling to 9
states, reaching over 25 cities and meeting with community leaders –
releasing state specific reports taking a close look at the costs each
American will pay for Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan’s
(R-WI) policies that ask the middle class to pay more so the wealthiest
Americans and huge corporations can pay less.“Iowans are tired of the ads and hungry for facts, and this report
lays out the evidence behind the fact that Romney’s plan would mean
higher taxes, tuition, and health care costs for middle class families,”
said Tom Perriello, President of the Center for American Progress
Action Fund. “This report highlights the fact that the Romney-Ryan plan
will under-fund transportation and research, reward outsourcing, and ask
struggling families and seniors to pick up the tab. Iowans deserve a
just-the-facts tour that avoids the personality debates to focus on the
practical impacts at the kitchen table.”CAP Action today released “The True Cost of Romney-Ryan To Iowans.” Key findings of the report include:Middle-class Iowans would pay more in taxes while millionaires pay
less. Millionaires in the state would receive an additional $87,000 in
tax breaks under the tax plans of Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan while
middle-class families would pay up to $1,900 more in health care taxes
and $1,066 more in taxes on their mortgages.Jobs would decline across Iowa. Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan plan to
provide extra tax incentives for corporations to outsource jobs and are
pushing policy proposals to cripple the clean energy industry,
jeopardizing 40,000 jobs across the state.Drastic cuts to federal spending would shrink Iowa’s middle class.
The state stands to lose more than $23.6 billion in federal funding from
2013 through 2022, an average of more than $2.3 billion a year, from
cuts to schools, law enforcement, highway repairs, job-training programs
and more.These cuts would fall predominantly on middle-class and low-income
families, especially cuts to education programs that would result in
nearly $73 million in reduced federal support for education and job
training in the state in 2013 and $169 million in 2014 alone.Seniors in Iowa would lose health care benefits and pay more. Gov.
Romney and Rep. Ryan would force seniors in the state to pay at least
$585 morefor their prescription drugs each year. At the same time, the
Romney-Ryan plan to turn Medicare into a voucher would cost current
seniors at least $11,000 more out of pocket.Women in Iowa would pay more for health care but receive less. Gov.
Romney and Rep. Ryan would once again allow insurance companies to
charge women more than men while taking away preventive care from
520,000 women in the state.Young adults in Iowa would lose access to their families’ health
insurance. Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan promise to dismantle Obamacare,
which would directly result in 20,000 young adults in Iowa losing the
insurance they have today due to the Affordable Care Act.CAP Action will be traveling to Des Moines, Mason City, Waterloo,
Cedar Rapids and Iowa City on the “True Cost of Romney-Ryan to Iowans”
Tour.